


Letting Go

by Angelic_Xia



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Moving On, Self-Discovery, Unrequited Love, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 12:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18165233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelic_Xia/pseuds/Angelic_Xia
Summary: If he wants things to change, he has to do this. It hurts, it's hard, but it has to be done.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a long time coming, this decision. It didn’t mean it hurt any less, or that he was any less terrified, or that it wasn’t going to be torture, but it had to be done.

“Reborn.”

“Gokudera. You’re sure about this?”

No. No, he’s not, not at all, but if he doesn’t get away for a while, nothing will change. While it would kill him, it wasn’t like he was leaving forever, and staying … staying would destroy him.

He shakes his head, clearing his thoughts. “Yeah. He’s succeeded the Ninth, and things are stable, so if I’m going to do this, now is the time. You know how to get in contact if there’s an emergency.”

“He won’t take this lying down.” Those black eyes stare at him. “He’s going to look for you, Gokudera Hayato.”

“Then it’s a good thing there won’t be a Gokudera Hayato or a man with silver hair and green eyes to find. Mammon does good work. Thank them for me, okay? And take care of Uri.”

“She’ll be fine, kid. You better be, too.”

He turns away, joining the boarding line. “See ya around, Reborn.”

As he walks through the doorway, he looks back one last time, and thinks he sees the last person he wanted to see … but then he turns away, walks forward, and doesn't look back for a long time.


	2. Chapter 2

Which is a total lie, of course. He spends the entire plane ride crying, and the next, and the next. By the time he gets to Boston at one in the morning local time he’s tired enough to take the deferral and manages to book a flight for that evening, snagging a hotel room and crashing.

He spends the next fourteen hours asleep, dreaming of laughter and gentle eyes, of the rare times he’s been let close enough to touch. He wakes up crying again, knowing he’ll never have what he’s come to need, knowing that as much as Tsuna loves him, it’s not … 

He’s in love with Tsuna, and Tsuna will never be in love with him.

It’s with dry brown eyes and a full stomach that 24 year old pianist Ethan Toller boards his 5:10 PM flight to San Francisco, intent on traveling the coast for a while.


	3. Chapter 3

He's lost somewhere in Chopin's Études when he notices the man at the bar. The very familiar, very tall man at the bar. He nearly trips over his own fingers when he recognises Yamamoto, but he keeps calm by reminding himself that he's Ethan Toller, 25 last week, brown eyes, sandy hair, taller than 19-year-old Gokudera Hayato ever could have been.

By the time he finishes his set there's only one seat left in the lounge, and it's right next to - well, someone he's never met, supposedly, but good luck convincing his brain of that. He lets himself curse in his head for old times' sake and sits down anyways.

"Hey, Ethan, good job, but when are you going to play something that doesn't creak worse than this place?" Jim's a great guy, already sliding a lemon soda and his dinner, ordered from that litle seafood place down the hill, over the counter.

"Tomorrow night, Jim, you know I do classical on Fridays." Yamamoto is staring at him, and he mentally cringes when he realises that his voice is still Hayato's, but manages to ignore the stare.

"Sure, E, whatever you say." He finishes his dinner quickly, retreats to his piano, and starts when Yamamoto follows him; he relaxes when the suspiciously quiet idiot sits in one of the armchairs at a single table a short way away.

The next time he looks up, though, nearly has him choking, and he does falter: Jirou is sitting in Yamamoto's lap, missing his harness and Rain Flames, staring as intently as his master. He has fifteen minutes left in his set, but at least it's his last, and then up to the tower room he's rented for the next month while he stays in Carmel.

Should have remembered the Cypress was dog-friendly.


	4. Chapter 4

Breakfast the next morning comes with six foot of smiling swordsman and fifty-odd pounds of Spitz-type dog invading his personal space. "Mind if I sit here?"

He looks around, noting the three other completely empty, clean tables and then down at his spread of sheet music and shrugs. "Free country, but you might be a bit more comfortable somewhere else."

Of course the idiot ignores him, sprawling into the chair next to him while the box-dog sniffs around the border plants. "Good to see you actually eating in the morning for once."

"Excuse me? I've never met you before in my life, unless you count the fact you were watching me last night." He knows. Oh, crap the idiot knows.

A bird chirps and the sounds of conversation from other tables stops making sense, even when he tries to listen in. "Cut the crap, Hayato. No matter how different you look you still frown the same when you're working, and your voice hasn't changed."

"Ethan. The name's Ethan Toller and I know you can remember it; no matter what mask you put on you are not and were never stupid, Yamamoto." He sighs and drops his pen, leaning back in his chair. "I'm not ready to go back yet. A year, please, that's all I'm asking for. One more year. I need time, Takeshi, where I don't see him in anything around me."

"He misses you, Ha … Ethan. What the hell happened? One day everything looked fine and the next you were gone."

"I'm in love with him, and he's not in love with me. He'll never be in love with me. I promised him everything that day and while I'm not going back on that I needed to accept that for him everything means something different. And I needed to move on. I couldn't do that in Italy or Japan or even in the Mafia."

"And you can do that in California?" Takeshi sounds skeptical.

"I can do that playing piano and living the life you got to have but I didn't, where no one's after you, where no one catches fire, and where I don't have to face the love of my life and see something less staring back."

"He loves you, though."

"Oh, I know. That's the worst part. He loves me like he loves you, or Nana, or Kyoko. He'll never look at me and see his everything. I need to learn how to look at everything and not see him. How to look at him and not want his arms around me and his lips on mine. How to hear his voice and not have my heart break. I want to be able to walk out of his office at the end of the day, go home, and not cry myself to sleep, cry myself awake. How to go to bed and not be half-waiting for him to join me."

He can tell Takeshi can't say anything to that.

Takeshi's sitting in the lounge again that night, stays all night, listens, eats dinner with him.

The next morning he's gone, checked out just after dawn.


	5. Chapter 5

The next month goes by fast and uneventfully, no visitors or pieces of Hayato's life popping back up, and he makes it to his year's lease up in the Healdsburg hills unfound. It's peaceful up there, and there's a pool, and a garden, and a great view over the disappearing edge. It would make a nice place to retire to, and Ethan Toller, unconnected to the mafia, to Japan or Italy or Gokudera Hayato, might just be able to buy the place.

For the next year he swims, plays piano, improves his archery until he can shoot faster with a bow than a gun, takes care of the garden. Finally learns to cook without blowing anything up.

He grows his hair back out, stops wearing the single earring that anchors the Alterations that make him look like Ethan Toller on the property.

Finds out who Gokudera Hayato is.

Gokudera Hayato isn't actually all that into UMAs the way he was when he was a kid. He loves the piano, and has gotten over the flashback trauma. He likes cooking and growing things. He learns that he likes wood carving. He stops smoking. Writes a few songs.

He misses his friends. He finds that, yes, he actually has friends. Wants friends.

He's gay. He thought it was just Tsuna, but no, he's not actually attracted to women. Is attracted to men. After Tsuna, though, he doesn't think he wants to be in a relationship. It's not exactly Tsuna. It could have been anyone. But he thinks it over, and while he could see himself opening up to more people, and doesn't hurt over his best friend (the love of his life, and the thought no longer stings) any more, the thought of actually being with anyone else still makes him feel wrong. He finds he doesn't mind that. He's not alone. He has friends waiting back in Italy, something Takeshi had confirmed back in Carmel.

He writes a long, rambling letter to Bianchi. He no longer blames her for the poisoning, but he does blame her for her delusions. Explains that no, he doesn't like her, that his fainting is an actual medical problem, that everything she cooks turns to poison, that he has a similar problem, how he trained it, learned to control it, how he's asked Reborn to keep her away from him until she realises she has as many issues has he does.

He sells a few of his carvings at a craft fair. Runs into Kyoko as Toller, learns she's getting married to a guy she met at college.

Gets a letter back from Reborn saying Bianchi's gone back to the Falco, is learning to be Donna, getting therapy, training. That he thinks she'll be okay, one day, but until then Tsuna's banned her from the mansion.

Speaking of Tsuna, he's apparently been doing well, reforming things, keeping to his ethics. Misses him. Says hello, and that he understands the need to learn who he is.

The year passes, Ethan Toller buys the place, and Gokudera Hayato starts thinking about going back.


	6. Chapter 6

Two years after his disappearance, Gokudera Hayato is spotted at a sushi place in a small town an hour north of Tokyo. Tsuyoshi isn't actually surprised to see him.

"Knew you'd turn up sooner or later. Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Good. They'll be glad to see you."

He's seen next three days later in a graveyard outside Catania, talking to Trident Shamal.

"She'd be proud of you, you know. She loved you so, so much."

"Was she really going to run with me?" He looks up at the man he now knows is his uncle, his actual blood uncle, his mother's brother, and swallows heavily.

"All the way to Kyoto, kid. You might have even made a trip to see her best friend. Married a sushi shef who used to be an assassin, moved out to the middle of nowhere, just north of Tokyo. You might have made friends there. Earlier than you did, anyways."

And then he disappears again.

Two weeks later, he walks up a hallway to a massive set of oak doors, breathes deep. Adjusts his tie. Opens them.

"Tsuna. I'm back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this. It's hard, letting go like this, but it has to be done. Like Hayato, I can't keep hoping for something that will never happen. Distance and time might help, but who knows. Everything Hayato says about Tsuna is my own thoughts about who I'm letting go of. Like Hayato, I can't cut them out of my life; they're too important. Also like Hayato, there's no chance. I need to move on, let go, and keep being there for them.


End file.
